How Rick Perry aggressively pursued federal aid he now decries

gmb92 · Aug 17, 2011

Well this isn't the least bit surprising.

In his campaign kickoff last Saturday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry burnished his conservative credentials by attacking the idea of deficit stimulus spending. "Washington's insatiable desire to spend our children's inheritance on failed stimulus plans and other misguided economic theories have given us record debt and left us with far too many unemployed," he said.

But it was not always so for Perry. Back in 2003, lobbyists under Perry's direction went to Capitol Hill to lobby the Republican Congress for more than a billion dollars in federal deficit spending on "stimulus." And they won. A 2005 report (pdf) by the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations boasted of "$1.2 billion in temporary state fiscal relief to Texas" through Medicaid that Perry's lobbying operation had secured. (Watch TIME's video "Rick Perry Is Ready to Run for President.")

And that was just the beginning. The same report details millions more that flowed from the federal treasury into Texas as a result of the official state lobbying campaign, which was overseen by Perry, a Republican Lt. Governor and the Republican speaker of the state house between 2003 and 2005. In several cases, the Texas lobbying campaign won funds for programs that Perry now says he opposes as fiscally irresponsible intrusions on state responsibilities.

In the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, for instance, Texas lobbyists successfully pushed to include an additional $47.5 million a year for four years, to help reimburse the cost of health care for undocumented immigrants. In 2005, the lobbyists fought to restore $200 million in funding for No Child Left Behind that had been cut by the Senate. About $14.5 million of that money was directed to Texas for "innovation programs." The
Texas lobbying operation also supported several earmarks, including direct funds for maintenance dredging in the Matagorda shipping channel, and money to study the feasibility of a desalination project in Freeport.

Mark Miner, a spokesman for the Perry campaign, said Perry's record of fiscal responsibility is clear from his state record. "Americans send billions of dollars to Washington, D.C., every year and continue to be frustrated by a federal government that is irresponsible with taxpayer dollars," he said. "The Governor has signed six balanced budgets, in a large and diverse state. You have to prioritize and make tough decisions and that is not what we are seeing from the Obama Administration."

Miner added that much of the federal money that flowed to Texas under Perry served a federal purpose. "Many of the issues Texas and other states have to deal with, like border security, are the result of a federal government that has failed in its responsibility," he said.

Among other efforts, the Perry lobbying operation was involved in one of the most storied legislative maneuvers of the last decade. In 2005, at the tail end of the conference committee process on a massive federal $14 billion energy bill, members of Congress from Texas inserted a $1.5 billion program under the subtitle, "Ultra-Deepwater and Unconventional Natural Gas and Other Petroleum Resources." Much of the money in this provision was directed to an unnamed consortium, which seemed to describe a private-sector partnership operating in the offices of the Texas Energy Center, a Perry-funded project in Sugar Land, Texas. (See "Texan to the Core: Rick Perrys Life and Career in Politics.")

At the time, Democrats were outraged by the last-minute addition to the bill. "The subtitle appears to steer the administration of 75% of the $1.5 billion fund to a private consortium located in the district of Majority Leader Tom DeLay," wrote Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., after the law passed. That consortium later won the account.

Perry had played a key role in setting up the Texas Energy Center in 2003, by giving a $3.6 million grant from an "enterprise fund" he controlled. "This commitment of enterprise fund money not only will lead to the creation of new, high-paying jobs in Texas but also will help expand Texas' reputation as a leader in the development of new and cleaner energy technologies and resources," Perry said at the time.

Shortly afterwards, the Texas Energy Center hired Drew Maloney, a former DeLay chief of staff, to lobby the U.S. Congress on its behalf. Maloney was also working at the time as a lobbyist for the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations, which Perry oversaw. The office reported in 2005 that it had also lobbied Congress for appropriations on behalf of the Texas Energy Center.

Today, Perry's speaks of Washington as an alien land, inhabited by irresponsible politicians. In his most recent book, Fed Up!, Perry criticizes President George W. Bush for giving free rein to "spendthrift congressional Republicans." "Ultimately, the record is fairly unforgiving for Republicans - particularly in Congress - who have been in power in Washington over the last decade or so," Perry wrote in 2010. "They haven't just spent our money wildly - they have blatantly ignored our core founding principles."

This is the same message that Perry has brought to the campaign trail since announcing his bid for the presidency. It is not the same message lobbyists that Perry oversaw brought to Congress just a few years ago.
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http://news.yahoo.com/rick-perry-aggressively-pursued-federal-aid-now-decries-095000694.html

Republicans might be better off going with someone who has spent zero time in office. Even one year is long enough for the inevitable trail of corruption and hypocrisy to be detected.

gmb92 · Aug 17, 2011

Wow...you can hear a pin drop.

Margot · Aug 17, 2011

Perry is a grandstanding phony.. Forget him.

GiveUsLibertyin2012 · Aug 17, 2011

Pursued it?
If you Libs would do some research for once in your life,you will find that he REFUSED the stimulus.
again,DUHHHHHHHHHHHH

fiddlerdave · Aug 17, 2011

GiveUsLibertyin2012 said: ↑

Pursued it?
If you Libs would do some research for once in your life,you will find that he REFUSED the stimulus.
again,DUHHHHHHHHHHHH
Click to expand...

It is so amazing to see how untruths come so easily to the Right Wing.

Here is what really happened! He took MOST of the Stimulus money, he only skipped the money for unemployment! "Let them eat cactus"

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-5166310-503544.html

Earlier this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry was one of a handful of Republican governors who refused some federal stimulus funds from President Obama's economic recovery package on the grounds that there were too many strings attached to the money.

Now that the state is dire straits, however, Perry is asking the federal government for a loan to cover the very expenses the rejected stimulus money would have paid for.

While Perry accepted most of the roughly $17 billion in stimulus funds allocated for Texas, the governor in March rejected $555 million that would have covered state unemployment benefits. Perry said he was not accepting the money because the state would have been obligated to expand its unemployment coverage, creating too much of a long term tax burden.

At the time, Texas Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken reportedly said the state's unemployment compensation trust fund could be operating at a deficit by October. Now that the state's unemployment funds are depleting faster than expected, the governor is asking for a $170 million loan from the federal government, News 8 Austin reports.

"This is nothing out of the ordinary," Perry reportedly said. "We're following protocol that we put in place."

Democratic legislators in Texas are speaking out against the governor's actions.

"That $555 million would that would have come with the stimulus money wouldn't have to be paid back to the federal government, and that would have saved business taxpayers money for the next 20 years," said Democratic State Rep. Mark Strama, according to News 8 Austin.
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How Rick Perry aggressively pursued federal aid he now decries

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